What is a consulting coach, and why should you consider hiring one if you’re a consulting business founder looking to grow your business?
A consulting coach is a business coach for entrepreneurial consultants.
Think of a personal trainer, who helps you get results inside of the gym. But instead of helping you get results in the gym, they help you get results inside of your consulting business.
They understand what you’re going through because they’ve been there before. And they know how to help you get to your next level of desired success.
And the data supports the power of business & executive coaching: the average ROI is 600%+.
At Consulting Success®, we’ve been building a coaching program for entrepreneurial consultants for over a decade. And we’ve hired and trained over a dozen coaches to create one of the most effective consulting coaching programs in the world.
By the end of this article, you’ll understand how to find, hire and use a consulting coach to help you take your consulting business to the next level.
Ready? Let’s dive in…
The Role Of A Consulting Coach (How They Benefit You)
What are the benefits of a consulting coach, and how can hiring one benefit you?
A consulting coach can help bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. Their guidance will help you reach your goals faster, avoid mistakes, and commit to a proven process.
1. Accelerate Your Success
Building a successful consulting business is a complex journey. You’re constantly making important decisions that affect your firm’s trajectory.
Your coach, through their experience and knowledge, will guide you along the most efficient path.
Imagine driving to a new destination where you’re unfamiliar with the road. Your consulting coach acts as your GPS. They help map the route, expediting your journey.
For example, let’s say you’re great at delivering consulting work, but you struggle to win consulting clients — one of the most common challenges new consultants face.
A coach can help you build a marketing strategy that will help you get in front of your ideal clients, start conversations with them, and turn them into paying clients.
Consulting coaches have seen the pitfalls and missteps that consultants make. They’ve made these mistakes themselves. Their advice will save you from making those same mistakes: they can see them before you’re even aware that they are about to hit you.
2. Avoid Costly Mistakes
When you’re building a consulting business, mistakes are inevitable. But the fewer you make, the less stress and frustration you’ll feel.
Consulting coaches have seen the pitfalls and missteps that consultants make. They’ve made these mistakes themselves. Their advice will save you from making those same mistakes: they can see them before you’re even aware that they are about to hit you.
For example, on a recent Clarity Coaching call, a client was speaking about how she was about to invest a lot of time and money to build a course.
Sam and I have made this mistake before: investing time and money into a project before validating that the market wants it.
Based on my own experience and mistakes, I helped our client avoid making this often catastrophic mistake.
Time is one of the things you’ll never get back. Don’t spend years trying to figure it all out by yourself when you can invest in a coach that can save months — or even years — of your time.
3. Accountability & Support
If you’ve struck out on your own to build a consulting business, chances are you’re a self-motivated individual.
But even the most industrious of us benefit from accountability, community, and support.
A consulting coach will both support and challenge you, helping you set ambitious goals and follow through to achieve them. They provide a second pair of eyes, giving you objective, helpful feedback.
There’s no doubt you’ll face challenges as a consulting business owner.
But, when you have a coach who is there to support you on an emotional level, it provides another layer of support that most entrepreneurial consultants don’t have.
A coach won’t replace a therapist. But they will provide a supportive environment where you can share your ideas, doubts, and fears without judgment.
Characteristics Of An Effective Consulting Coach
So, you’re interested in hiring a consulting coach: someone who can help you build a more profitable consulting business.
Here’s what you should be looking for to ensure that you get the highest ROI out of your investment.
1. Do They Have A Track Record Of Success?
An effective consulting coach doesn’t just talk the talk — they’ve walked the walk. They’ve started and grown their own consulting business, and have the track record to prove it.
Having experienced success in their own business is a huge part of being able to pass that success on to their clients.
As a consultant, it’s best to take feedback and advice from coaches that have been where you want to go. They know how to effectively get there and what you should look out for.
2. Do They Have Actual Consulting Experience?
A credible consulting coach doesn’t rely solely on ideas and theories; they have hands-on experience in the consulting field.
Selling and delivering consulting to organizations and leaders (B2B) is different from selling and delivering other products and services to consumers (B2C).
The ideal consulting coach will have consulting experience that is relevant to you, like selling to executives.
As a consultant, you want a coach who’s not only a great coach — but a great consultant as well.
But other business coaches value immaterial things like family, relationships, making an impact, taking care of their people, and earning more doing what they love.
3. Do They Share Your Values?
When you’re looking for a consulting coach, pay close attention to their values.
Some business coaches are big on social media, showing off material goods like cars, houses, and money. And there’s nothing wrong with that. If that’s what you value, then you’ll find alignment with coaches who value the same thing.
But other business coaches value immaterial things like family, relationships, making an impact, taking care of their people, and earning more doing what they love.
These don’t translate as well to a shiny Instagram follower count — but, in our opinion, they contribute far more to a meaningful life.
So, if you find a successful and experienced coach, the final thing to look for is an alignment of your values. If that’s off, then working with them will never feel quite right.
But, when you align in values with your consulting coach, you’ll inherently trust their guidance more, take more action, and see more results.
Examples Of Consulting Coaches (& Their Advice For Consultants)
Here are some examples of consulting coaches inside of our Clarity Coaching Program and some of their advice earned by coaching dozens of consultants inside our program.
1. Brian Oulton
Early consultants spend their time on things that are not going to help them. If you’re not asking yourself, “Why am I doing this? How is this thing going to help me or my customer base,” then you shouldn’t do it.
Focus on their problem. You begin to differentiate yourself, number one is because you’re listening. Number two, you’re beginning to understand their problem better than a person who’s not having that conversation with them. You’re asking them what’s going on. You’re trying to understand it and they begin to say, “Brian understands me and what’s going on.” That begins to help you differentiate yourself.
I’m careful about the way that I schedule my time. That gives me more time with my wife and family. I make sure I take the time out. That’s number one. It helps me to solve tougher challenges and problems. It helps me to gain the focus and clarity that I need. There are times when there’ll be a tough challenge. I’ll wake up at 3:00 in the morning and sit bold upright. My wife has learned to put some paper and a pen on a nightstand so I can write down the answer to the problem. I also find answers to problems by taking hikes and walks with my wife. I scheduled my time carefully so I do have the time to do that and to appreciate those non-work hours because my brain is always going.
2. Nina Cooke
We see the world as a distorted place through what we believe is true. Some of our beliefs are positive and helpful, and some of them are unhelpful. You don’t see the world as I see it but we can change our perspective of the world, other people, and ourselves simply by changing what we believe to be true about ourselves. It’s never too late.
There is a huge lack of self-awareness about what we are saying to ourselves. We are running exactly the same conversations in our heads every single day, and we don’t pay attention to them. We may think, “I’ve got to get a lot done. I haven’t got time to slow down and listen to what I’m saying to myself,” but it will save you a lot of time. Imagine you are putting off a task because you think it’s too scary. How much time are you spending talking about it in your head versus just doing it? You are wasting an awful lot of time by not slowing down and listening to yourself, so you can write down your thoughts.
The biggest challenge is a fear of marketing and putting yourself out there. That’s what we have to do to have a great business. You can do some clicking stuff and sell products but if you want to work with high-caliber clients, you have to speak to them and tell them about how good you are. This is all about relationships and the exchange of value between you and your client. If you don’t feel you can ever have that conversation, not only are you doing yourself a disservice but you are doing a big disservice to your community as well.
3. Patrick Farran
One of the things that are important there, too, is being very clear before you go out there and seek those relationships on who you are, what your value proposition is, and how you want to show up to those folks. If you are not clear on that and you have ambiguity going out in front of folks, it’s only going to accelerate that ambiguity. You want to make sure you do a little bit of that going slow to go fast when you get out there, but to your point, it can accelerate that process.
One of the coaches I have worked with, what they are saying was, “Business moves at the speed of relationships.” I’m borrowing from that mantra. You’ve got folks that have built audiences that are going to benefit from your offers. If you can find those that can accelerate your exposure and your learning curve and so forth. Why would you try and do it on your own when those opportunities exist? I would add that into the mix of looking for target clients where that makes sense.
What we have in the program that we work on that I find particularly helpful is thinking about the problems you can help your clients solve. Not only what are the types of problems, but what are the problems you enjoy solving? If you have an affinity towards those and you enjoy and get energized by those, that’s going to tend to serve you better. It’s by following your energy and being mindful of that, and thinking about what are the steps or actions you take to address those problems. Most importantly, from a messaging side, what are the results? What are the outcomes for the clients that you can help them achieve? We often talk about together that clients don’t want to report and have workshop, meeting, and process. They want what’s on the other side of that.
To see our full roster of consulting coaches, check out Clarity Coaching Program & community.
Hire A Consulting Coach To Help Grow Your Consulting Business
The longest, most frustrating way to grow your consulting business is to try and figure it out on your own.
You may find yourself spinning your wheels, getting frustrated, wasting a lot of time and money making unnecessary mistakes.
But that’s not the only way.
By hiring a consulting coach, you can learn from someone who’s made all of the mistakes building their consulting business. And they can help you avoid making the same mistakes, enabling you to make much faster progress.
Inside the Clarity Coaching program, we’ve helped over 850 consultants to build a more strategic, profitable, and scalable, consulting business.
Our program provides an unmatched level of coaching, mentorship, and community. You’ll be surrounded by elite consulting business owners who have insight and experience in solving the exact specific business you’re facing now.
Inside Clarity Coaching, we’ll work hands-on with you to develop a strategic plan and then dive deep and work through your ideal client clarity, strategic messaging, consulting offers, use an effective and proven consulting pricing strategy, help you to increase your fees, business model optimization, and help you to set up your marketing engine and lead generation system to consistently attract ideal clients.
Learn More About Clarity Coaching
You’ll learn how to make more money with every project you take on — and how to land more clients than ever before. Learn more about Clarity Coaching and get in touch to talk about your situation and goals.